Researching
Historic Buildings in the British Isles

Researching the history of houses

The British Isles boasts a great range of periods and styles of domestic
architecture, starting with the handful of Norman houses still standing. Up to
the 17th century the general run of houses used local materials, skills and traditions. While the
houses of the nobility and
gentry might be influenced by fashions from abroad or Court circles, the
average person lived in a house characteristic of his region - what is known as
vernacular architecture. From the 18th
century local builders began to make greater use of pattern books - published
designs which they could copy - bringing the same fashions to different
regions. (Online examples are listed under Georgian.)

While rural houses tend to be detached, urban houses, packed into more
limited space, began to push up against each other in the Middle Ages. Since
they could not expand any further width ways, they piled storey upon storey.
The possibilities for nuisance from neighbours and the risk of fire spreading
led to early building regulation in cities.
Gradually regulation came to dictate the materials that could be used and even
elements of style.

Georgian developers made a virtue of
necessity by building terraced houses to a uniform plan in towns. Rows of town houses could be grouped into impressive squares
and crescents. Meanwhile country landlords might build a village row, and some started a fashion for the
semi-detached plan, by building simple cottages in pairs. The concept was
elevated to the middle classes around the late Georgian period in occasional
pairs of suburban villas.

As the Victoriansuburban belt spread out around the Georgian
developments, terraced housing continued for the poorer end of the market, but
detached houses for the affluent, and semi-detached for the middle ranks. In
the 1920s and 1930s the semi-detached became the favourite plan among
speculative builders, but also those built by local councils for rental under
the 1919 and later Housing Acts.

Thom, C., Researching London's Houses: an archives guide
(2005) is written by an historian working on the Survey
of London.

Style, C. and O., House Histories for Beginners (2006).

Ownership

Freehold property

Title deeds. Try the owner or local record office. The Law of Property
Act (1925) abolished the need to prove title back more than 30 years. Since
then huge collections of title deeds formerly held by solicitors have been
deposited in record offices.

Registration of deeds. A valuable source where the deeds themselves have
been lost. Scotland established a national system of
property registration in the medieval period. Information can be obtained
from The Registers of Scotland.
Ireland has had registration of deeds since 1708. Details
of ownership can be inspected at the Land Registry and Registry of Deeds,
and increasingly online. HM
Land Registry was established in 1862 for those who wished to record
the ownership of land in England and Wales. Between 1899
to 1990 compulsory registration on sale was gradually extended area by area
to the whole of England and Wales. There are fees for the use of all three
registries. Several English boroughs enrolled deeds in the medieval period,
including London. Yorkshire and
Middlesex began voluntary registration of deeds in the
early 18th century; these registers are now in the relevant record offices.

Leasehold or copyhold property

The past owner is likely to be a large landowner, whose estate records
should include maps, rentals, surveys, leases and accounts. Copyhold property
was held by a copy of an entry on the manor court
roll. The copies and/or the original rolls may survive. The National Archives hold numerous
rentals, surveys and manorial court rolls, especially of Crown and ex-monastic
property (see PRO Lists and Indexes vol. 25) For the estate records of private
owners see family archives. Diocesan records cover the
estates of bishops. The Bodleian
Library holds the estate records of the Oxford colleges.

Occupation

The sources below help to build up a picture of who actually lived in a
house, what they did for a living and their standard of living. They can fill
gaps in knowledge where deeds of sale or lease are missing.

County and city directories with
names and addresses began to be published in the 18th century, but provide
much more complete coverage from the mid-19th century.

Census returns: a census of the United Kingdom has been carried out every
10 years since 1801, except 1941. The census returns are generally open to
the public 100 years after the census was taken.

For England and Wales the returns from 1841 give
names, ages (over 15 rounded down to nearest 5 years) and occupations
of occupiers by house; from 1851 they give exact age and parish of
birth. The original returns are held by The National Archives, but they
are usually read on microfilm or online.

Those for any given area are generally available on microfilm in the
relevant county or city record
office and some local studies libraries.

Those for England and Wales, the Channel Isles, and Isle of
Man 1841-1911 are available online from the National Archives.
They can be searched online free, but there is a small fee for
downloads. Census returns can be searched by address all together at
the 1901 website. There
is also a separate website for 1911.

Census returns for England, Scotland, Wales, The Channel
Isles and Isle of Man are also online for 1841-1901 at Ancestry.co.uk.

Indexes and transcripts have been made for many parishes; more and
more are becoming available online. Street indexes to the 1841, 1851,
1861, 1871 and 1891 censuses of England and Wales are available online
at Your
Archives:Historical Streets Project.

The census returns for Ireland gave name, age,
occupation and number of storeys of the house from 1821, but only
fragments of the census returns of 1821-1851 survive, and those for
1861-1891 were completely destroyed. The census returns for Ireland of
1901 and 1911 are held by the National Archives of Ireland, (with
microfilm copies for the six counties now in Northern Ireland available
at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.) Census returns for
1901 and 1911 can beÂ searched and read
online free.

Census returns for Scotland in 1841-1901 are held by
the General Register Office for Scotland, and can be read at the ScotlandsPeople Centre
or online at Scotland's
People or Ancestry.co.uk.
Census Street Lists for the main towns and cities for all census years
are also available online at Scotland's People. These can be used to
locate the returns for particular streets.

Electoral registers, poll books and burgess rolls appears from the 19th
century. These are usually held in local studies libraries, but there are
large collections in British Library and other national libraries. Jeremy
Gibson, Electoral Registers 1832-1948; and Burgess Rolls
(2008), provides a lists of such sources under county, by constituency.

Rate books: usually deposited in public libraries or record offices.

Tithe maps and other maps with associated surveys of ownership and/or
occupation - see maps.

Descriptions

Newspapers: advertisements for the sale or lease of properties frequently
appeared in the local press, but are enormously time-consuming to locate
without an index. Some local studies libraries have compiled useful
place-name indices, or maintain cuttings files; a few are available online
as searchable databases. See local
libraries for details and guides to locations.